De Beers launches app for artisenal miners in Sierra Leone

April 24th, 2018

Global diamond giant De Beers is rolling out an app to help small-scale, artisanal diamond miners in Sierra Leone certify that gems they pry from the soil are legal, Reuters reported.

The initiative is the latest attempt by the industry to clean up its image and expunge the scourge of “blood diamonds” blamed for financing conflict, chaos and criminality in poor African countries, such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, said the Reuters report.

More widely, small-scale mining is often tainted by alleged links to insurgents or child labor, casting a cloud over supply chains for commodities such as cobalt, which is produced mainly in the conflict-prone Democratic Republic of Congo, and gold, the Reuters report said.